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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Know how I'm always complaining that challenges should be open longer? Not this time. Thanks for creating a challenge just for me, ladies ;) On a fluke I happened to see this at CASology four minutes after it was posted!

and have leftovers from this card still on my workspace (read: ironing board). Know where I'm headed?

The challenge is sponsored by Paper Smooches - such cheeky stamps. Love 'em. And this set, A little Lovin', is fabby. When I bought it I thought I would only use the mama/baby elephant image in it for baby cards - it's precious - but no, this froggy has seen his share of ink too! Just realized you can't see his gold crown :(

Happy CASing folks. And thanks to all of my followers out there. So nice to see your cheery faces every day. Maybe I'll have to giveaway some furry pink hearts soon!

Monday, May 27, 2013

Another yippie here - in my cutting up craze I stumbled upon a PP that was just screaming to adorn DD's birthday card. There's rumor a four-legged fur ball may be joining our family post-summer vacation. At least that's what we've been telling her since post-summer vacation last year. We would love to have a dog (we are a Golden Retriever kinda family), but because we travel to my folks' every summer we've always nixed the idea. The two rabbits were a compromise - can be carted to MIL's while we're gone. And although they are work and she's a sweetie for taking care of them, a dog would be a bit much. And a kennel for a month every year doesn't seem fair to the doggie. And I know I wouldn't want to travel sedated in the belly of the plane with the suitcases.

But then DD discovered that certain dogs are small enough to take in the cabin on the airplane. She's really been looking into this and we've nixed the Chihuahua and are now at Havanese. If any of you lovelies out there have one, or more specifically have one that travels, I'd love to hear your stories...

Anyhoo, this was supposed to be about PP. And a card. Here she is.

The whole front panel is from one piece of Webster's Pages PP. I simply added the "laser cut" mint flowers and a gold embossed sentiment. Hope she likes it. Can't believe my little girl is going to be 15!

Now there's no feather or weather here, but I love the image for this week's Tuesday Trigger and I think it might subconsciously have made me more alert when I stumbled upon this doggie. There is a very similar feel, agree?

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Yippie... I've used up some more PP. And I've got sore arms cuz I've finally taken the plunge and chopped the majority of my 12x12 up into 6x6 pieces. I truly think this will help me use it more often - it worked this time!

TIP: Think about pieces with special patterns that you might one day want to actually scrapbook on - don't chop 'em! Keep some pieces for making envelopes or pillow boxes or book covers (I kinda forgot about that in my cutting craze.)

Now what are these lovelies adorning, you ask? Well, it's a huge soccer day in Germany because the Champions League final (like a European Cup but with pro teams as opposed to national teams) is happening this evening in London. And amazingly enough, two German teams are playing - Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. I'm rooting for Dortmund cuz their trainer, Jürgen Klopp, commonly called "Kloppo" is uber cool and got his start at our area team, Mainz 05! Anyhoo, probably more than you really wanted to know. But we are joining friends to watch the game and this is what I'm taking as host/hostess gifts ;)

Yep, we live in wine country but we can't ignore beer now can we? Fair's fair! Hope your weekend is nice. Cheers to all the Memorial Day celebraters...

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Here's my last birthday card for the open auditions at Paper Crafts Gallery Idol 2013 challenge. Have you joined the fun yet? As another wise man once said "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."Lookin' kinda regal and elegant from the little photo, eh? When I showed DD this one, she wrinkled her nose. Well, keeping with the theme "Birthday Cards for Teens and Kids" please meet "for a 16-year-old-kitschy-but-true":

What was I thinking when I bought that shaggy neon pink fabric? Pillow. Nuff said. It will never meet my sewing machine. But my Big Shot, yep!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

In just under the gun. Again. With a digital stamping on PP for the CASual Fridays

Just love that sentiment and thought this little worm girl looked like she was wigglin' it! Sequins on a stick pin - you've seen that before. And even with her wiggly eyes this little lady was a Paper Crafts reject. Oh well.

Here's another birthday card for the open auditions at Paper Crafts Gallery Idol 2013 challenge. Keeping with the theme "Birthday Cards for Teens and Kids" please meet "for a 13-year-old-alcohol-inks-and-artsy":

I applied alcohol inks to glossy card as seen at Craft Stamper and therefore I'm also hooking this up to the Make it Take it #2 challenge to rip and tear - perfect for vellum.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Morning. Broke my heart to hear about the tornado victims in Oklahoma. Cars and horses flying through the air??? Are we responsible for the crazy changes in weather recently??? Even got an email from Mom saying that in MI last night they had crazy storms and then a "totally pink sky" like she's never seen before...

Well, maybe it was the holiday weekend in Germany (the third this month already... can you say lucky?) but something moved me to create cards for this year's Gallery Idol competition over at Paper Crafts. I'm not expecting anything out of it, but it's kinda like the challenge of all challenges in my book. And as a wise man once said, it's all about the journey, not the destination. Get your thinking cap on and give it a go too!

The theme for the Open Auditions is "Birthday Cards for Teens and Kids". Now that is truly challenging for me. Introducing "for-a-four-year-old-in-primary-colors":

Saturday, May 18, 2013

But alas, I'm still limited to my two and a half stamp sets. So when Dawn said "use the mood board as a starting point for a card, tag, layout or any project...where ever the inspiration takes you! " it took me fishing. Birthday, bold stripes, masculine, primary colors. Never would have imagined how happy this stamp set makes me!

We've got a neighbor who loves to fish. This card'll be bobbin' his way . It's also bobbin' over to A Blog named Hero where the current challenge is Clean and Simple. Yep. Have a good one.

Friday, May 17, 2013

...I've used up some letter stickers! That's certainly not what you were expecting, eh? But after thinking of "the best laid plans..." and "neglected children " as post titles, it occurred to me that something positive occured here.

Backtrack. DS takes a final exam in German today. Four hours long. DD has a Math test and let's just say she and Math don't get along well. And there's this saying in German that loosely translates to "the shoemaker's kids have the worst shoes in town". I'm whipping out cards all the time, but rarely for my own kids. That's about to change.

Since I had two cards to cover and Alicia T.'s bitty bag had been playing in the back of my mind, this is what I did.

Printed the "yes you can" (nod to a certain presidential campaign) then placed the "you" stickers on one card and misted with blue Dylusions and the "can do it" stickers on the other card and sprayed with pink Dylusions. Took the letters off the cards and adhered them to the "other" card - get it?

TIP: If you want the letters to look clean after they've been misted... they probably won't. Maybe they would if you wiped them quickly with a baby wipe. But I didn't. So I now have some yellow-misted-pink stickers back in my stash replacing the clean ones I had to pull out to use on the blue card!

I'm hooking up at CASE Study - #141. I had Maile's hearts in mind when choosing the colors to use for the two cards and I just love the words-on-top-of-gobs-of-color idea.

And I saw this cool photo at Inspired By #45 and that stark "E" at the top inspired me to use strong black letters in the pink mist with the design flowing from upper left to lower right. Cool photo Laurel.

Thanks for visiting today. May the sun be with you this weekend, wherever you are.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I was thrilled to win a spot as Guest Designer for the Fabric of Friendship Recipe Swap at Catered Crop so the plan began. Fabric. Hmmm, make a flower? Use fabric for a card front? Well, if you check out the challenge, you'll see a board of ideas Linda has put together including two CAS beauties which look like they have an element of the design done in patchwork. So my gears started rolling.

Tomorrow is girlfriend's bday. Guess what she's getting? Gift tags. I sure hope all my friends think they are just as good for hanging around the neck of a wine bottle as I do... Maybe I should just start making wine bottle tags like Erin T....

So how about if I edged the tag with "patchwork" - that looks fabric-y - and stamped a simple image onto fabric (recycled canvasy stuff)? Then it occurred to me to use PTI Button Bits in keeping with the fabric theme. Done deal. Here's my fave of the bunch:

And here's the bunch:

Die cut tags in two different sizes - once from CS and once from canvas. Cut strips of PP (it's a Christmas PP pack from Penny Black! - wanted primary colors) and cut the strips into different sized pieces. Adhesive around the edges then I stuck them on randomly (such fun for all you control freaks out there). Stamped the images with Versafine and sewed on the buttons. Glued and stitched the fabric tags to the paper tags, punched a hole and added seam binding. Hmmm, how to package them?

Just bought a T-shirt at Aldi and was throwing away the packaging when I thought "hey I could sew myself a small pouch out of that and the tags will be visible through it." Done deal. TIP: Sewing machines don't like slippery plastic. Use temporary adhesive to lightly adhere the plastic to a piece of paper (the feed dog - is it really called that? - likes paper better than plastic), sew and then carefully tear away the paper. I even stitched at the top of the packaging so I could use the sticky foldover flap. A die cut patchwork heart, a sentiment stamped on a fabric scrap and a tiny clothespin and she's good to go.

Note: I'm still reeling from my watercolor related wins over at Moxie Fab. Playing with colors is SO MUCH FUN and there is so much inspiration over there to be had. The challenge is over but you must check out the gallery if you haven't.

and the decision to use my new gray CS going monochromatic led to this card:

Inspired by the subtle BG stamping on Maile's card, I pulled out a mesh BG, stamped with Versamark and sprinkled a tiny bit of black embossing powder for added interest. Distressed the edges of the panel and added some embossed powder to the cardbase in a nod to the sketch. Knowing I was making a sympathy card I didn't want to get carried away with embellies. My flowers are stamped on gray too, so I used a pink colored pencil to highlight the areas shaded on the stamp for a teensy bit of color. The strip of washi across the bottom nods to Maile's ribbon and the sketch.

Take a bird die cut from distress-inked and water-splattered CS, a PC generated sentiment and a sewing machine and this is what you get. I am a total fan of Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers", I just changed it up a little.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Don't have a lot of WPlus9 supplies, but what I do have I love. And I love putting them to work for the Cloud9 photo inspiration blog hops. Look at this beauty.

This spoke to me and said... you're not going to believe this... raised dots around the inside edges of the little frames. See 'em?

So that became this card.

So happy that I finally used a Spellbinders die I'd never used before. It's really not my style, but I bought it when the world was on a doily craze and I thought the hearts motif at least was my style. Well I die cut three, glued 'em together and used them to dry emboss my frame on the card front. A PP circle, some die cut leaves and handmade blooms and a super sentiment later I was ready to add my perfect pearl raised dots to my frame :)

Friday, May 10, 2013

Definitely a CAS card. But many minutes went into it. And I've now got a lot more respect for the likes of Chari M. and the others who have combined negative die cuts with sequins getting gorgeous results. I definitely need more practice. Have a look.

Used Matte Medium to glue them on. Used a Spellbinders flower die and a sentiment on vellum from Clearly Besotted Stamps.

Off for a wine wagon ride - trademark of Rheinhessen. Our town's festival is this weekend and the wine drinking season has officially begun. (Not that we wait for it to become official around here.) Prost!

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Howdy folks. It was just way too nice outside today. Couldn't make myself head to the laundry room to make a card. But I did run across this put-a-grin-on-your-face-from-ear-to-ear video that I decided I just had to share with you. Meet Sandy Allnock of Operation Write Home fame. Enjoy.

Did you catch the line about "punching flowers and hearts out of scraps"? Guilty. She must have a hidden camera in my scrap room!

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Have I told you I love country music? Yep, yep. Remember Trisha Yearwood? "An American Girl - She used to tie her hair up in ribbons and bows (not me), sign her letters with x's and o's (so me)..." I actually saw Trisha perform in the Detroit area a few years back. I digress. But - I think there may be more to it than just its wonderful graphic nature that moved me to purchase the XOXO die from WPlus9...

See that little black tag with the white heart next to the twine? That's what inspired me. Went with black on black but used some dry embossing and heat embossing gold around the edges to add some interest.

I did it again - the 10-minute Craft Dash. And I made it before my timer went off. Barely. 12 seconds left! And I had to go back and glue some blooms on better with stronger-than-Glossy-Accents glue cuz I guess it doesn't work between fabric and paper, but I'm not counting that.

Needed gifts for kids I tutor who made their confirmation. Wanted to include a motivational quote and personalize store-bought journals for each of them. When I saw the Craft Dash colors I decided to challenge myself on this girly one. I had the sentiment ready to go and I pulled the papers and my flower punches as well as the tiny alpha stickers ahead of time. Keeping with the notecard theme I included some washi but probably shouldn't have. In glueing down the flowers I aimed to put pink across from pink and blue across from blue but I probably could have done a better job. Oh well. Time pressure stinks, but it gets things done much quicker I must admit. Could probably have spent 10 minutes just re-arranging blooms!

Give the Craft Dash a go if you haven't before. It's definitely challenging but you feel good when you're done. And there's always a great prize.

Monday, May 6, 2013

No, not as in science. As in, where did this card come from? Take a piece of paper (not seen here) watercolored with Distress Inks and the squish method . Have this funky fish BG stamp fall out of the box you keep your BG stamps in as you move it from right to left for the hundredth time. Think "hmm, I could stamp that over the watercolored paper." Stamp it. Stamp off on a scrap of white card. Decide you don't know what to do with the now-watercolored-and-stamped specimen cuz it doesn't look as spiffy as you thought it would. Decide to color one goldfish on the stamped-off piece cuz you saw the latest challenge at Keep it Simple - White and a Splash (Get it? Fish...Water...Splash) and confused it with Play Date Cafe's B/W with Magenta and taaa daaa... The evolution of a goldfish!

Briefly thought of re-coloring him magenta, but I had a fantail goldfish for awhile as a kid so I consider this a tribute to him! And I figure I'll hook up at KIS anyway just to stir things up a bit since black isn't really a color ;)

And lucky me. Messed up for my original challenge plan, but CASual Fridays has a Tic Tac Toe challenge going on in celebration of their 2nd birthday and I'm in with B/W, embossing and birthday. Whew.

TIP: Nautical is trending. Need a simple nautical touch? Use a circle punch to create a wavy water effect like on my sentiment strip.

Well, I put my "I can do that" hat on and set about making a card. My plan? Stamp a cherry blossomed tree coming in from the side and layer vellum over a part of it with my profile cut out of it. Figured that would make the ultimate Mother's Day card.

The cherry blossomed tree worked fine. I forgot to take a photo of my first step which was the branches and then the teensy blooms from the CASual Fridays Calm and Gentle treetop stamp (the circle on the block upper left). Perfect for this. I used multi-generational stamping in Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick Distress and Chewing Gum Jenny Bowlin, spritzing the stamp with water sometimes before stamping. And therefore I'm parking this at the Wonder of Watercolor challenge at Moxie Fab.

The photo above was after the next step, stamping the same way with some individual tiny blooms from Technique Tuesday, as well as with some white pigment ink. Still all systems a go.

On copy paper I printed a B/W photo of me taken from the side. TIP: It's an easy way to achieve that silhouette we used to do in school with overhead projector and black construction paper. Put vellum over the photo and traced my silhouette , then fussy cut. Um, Houston, we've got a problem.

How to achieve the break between the vellum and non-vellum? How to attach the vellum cuz it needs to be raised a bit to have the effect? Sentiment? Ugh.

My solution: Tear the vellum, leaving only half of the silhouette. Stamp a few more cherry blossoms to mimic the form of my silhouette. Use whopper glue dots to achieve the height. Stamp the only Mother's Day sentiment I have in blue - blue? Where'd that idea come from????

Result: Not satisfied. But not willing to do it again. So here it is for you to learn from. Want this effect? Better leave it to Photoshop!